Posted inCity Council, Environment, News
Council supports labeling of gas pumps
by Jennifer Maas September 15, 2015 September 15, 2015
The City of Santa Monica wants you to know that gasoline causes climate change and it wants you to hear that message every time you hit the pump.
City Council reaffirmed support for mandatory labeling on gas pumps at their Sept. 8 meeting despite a staff report that said such action would likely be ineffective, potentially costly and probably subject to a lawsuit.
Mayor McKeown had asked staff to evaluate gas pump labels last year in response to several other jurisdictions taking up the issue. The advocacy group Think Beyond the Pump has spearheaded the concept and discussions are underway in Berkeley, San Francisco and Canada.
However, city staff didn't recommend joining the movement last week.
Director of City of Santa Monica's Office of Sustainability and the Environment Dean Kubani said his conversations with other cities suggested the idea was stalling.
"What I was told very clearly was these proposals were presented to various advisory groups in (San Francisco) and pushed them toward council and both are indefinitely on hold and I haven't heard anything to counter that at all," he said.
Kubani said his office wasn't proposing a moratorium on labeling pumps, but said the time wasn't right to move forward with the proposal.
According to staff, Santa Monica has attempted labeling rules in the past, with little effect. The city passed laws in 1994 to require retailers label store shelves that contained toxic products or products with hazardous substances. The rules encountered significant opposition from retailers and a follow-up study conducted in 1996 concluded the rules had minimal impact on public behavior.
"Based on this information the point-of-sale messaging materials were redesigned, however subsequent evaluations indicated that the program was minimally effective at influencing the desired behavior change. Rigorous implementation and enforcement of the ordinance was discontinued in 2004," read the report.
The staff recommendation said rules labeling fuel pumps are not likely to influence behavior but they will require significant staff time, and therefore resources, to implement. The report said labeling rules could also prompt a lawsuit.
Jim Stewart, speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club praised city staff for being strong environmentalists but said the repot was too cautious.
"I'm very unaccustomed to oppose something done by your fabulous staff," he said.
McKeown said he was "gobsmacked" by the recommendation. He said he has had conversations with officials in Berkeley and San Francisco that suggest both cities will take action on a proposal by the end of the year.
"I found it's still very much alive in SF and Berkeley," he said. "It would disturb me for Santa Monica to back out of this multi-jurisdictional effort at this point."
Later, in a statement, he said:"We remain committed to local action to address the global threat of greenhouse gases, and this statement on Santa Monica's part is one I'll carry proudly to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris this December.Our vote Tuesday night reaffirms the climate change leadership role we chose almost three years ago, when we became one of the first cities to divest fossil fuel investments from our City's portfolios."
Councilman Ted Winterer said there was no reason to formally drop the local proposal at this point and that Santa Monica should see how the issue is resolved in other cities.
"There's no harm if we don't take this recommended action and probably some upside if we delay a little bit," he said.
At the end of the discussion, the Council accepted and filed the report for its informational value but disagreed with the staff recommendation to cease work on the project. Instead, they directed staff to continue work on the project and asked for another update by the end of the year.
editor@www.smdp.com
Letter: Harebrained idea
Letter to the Editor: Ineffective labels
Letter: Gas pumps
Tagged: city council, dean kubani, gas pumps, gasoline, labeling gas pumps, matt hall, matthew hall, mayor mckeown, News, Santa Monica, Santa Monica City Council, santa monica daily press, santa monica gas pumps, santa monica government, santa monica news, smdp
Diane Citron says:
This is the silliest thing I've ever heard!
Carl Rhodes says:
If the city want to reduce global warming, removing speed bumps, removing stop signs, and changing the stop light timing to reduce the number of times cars need to accelerate and decelerate seems like a better way to create change and reduce CO2 production by reducing gasoline consumption.
Ted Winterer says:
Note that we did not commit to spending one dime on this, just plan to monitor similar efforts in Berkeley and San Francisco.
Steve Shortcomment says:
So glad our traffic and homeless problems are solved so we can spend our city's limitless time and untold riches on highly-effective programs like slapping stickers on gas pumps!
I'd call it unbelievable, but after 30 years of living in this city, I'm only surprised that our esteemed council members didn't see fit to mandate that the stickers be made of recyclable material, contain exclusively vegetable-based inks and soy-extract glue. Also under discussion are the bell bottom width and love bead strand density that must be worn by those fortunate city employees whose job it will be to place these life-changing labels on said pumps as they pedal their way to these vendors of noxiousness on their city-controlled bikeshare rides.
How about putting stickers over council members' mouths so they can't discuss or vote on ridiculous, wasteful, useless "ideas" like this? Yeah, I'd vote for that.
Justin Watt says:
This is a joke right? Of course it's not a joke, our elected officials are just that idiotic. Perhaps I will just start buying my gas outside of Santa Monica instead.